Inspired Execution
A leadership podcast With Chet Kapoor
Mark Nelson
Software Executive and Technologist
Bio
Mark brings decades of experience building products, teams, and businesses to his role with Madrona, having transitioned from his most recent role as CEO of Tableau in late 2022. In his time helping to build great products and teams, Mark has had the fortune of working on areas ranging from computational biophysics, large-scale database systems, middleware for enterprises, and cloud infrastructure to travel, expense solutions, and data analytics. At Madrona, he focuses on evaluating new investments and advising portfolio companies and their leaders. Mark is passionate about how software, particularly software’s ability to utilize data, will revolutionize and enhance every aspect of human endeavors in the years to come.
Mark most recently served as president at CEO of Tableau. He joined Tableau as EVP of product development in May of 2018, about a year before Tableau’s acquisition by Salesforce. As EVP, he led the global engineering and product teams, and under his leadership, both teams helped the company broaden and deepen its industry-leading analytics platform to support customers globally while leading the company through the turbulent acquisition integration process during a pandemic.
Prior to Tableau, Mark was the chief technology officer at Concur for four and a half years, where he was responsible for all aspects of product development and for hosting operations for their SaaS services. After Concur’s acquisition by SAP, Mark also served as the CTO for SAP Cloud Business Group.
Mark spent 17 years as vice president and architect at Oracle, working primarily in the middleware product groups, which grew from a nascent business to a $6 billion business. Before Oracle, Mark worked at the database company Informix and helped to build E9-1-1 products for AT&T. Mark has also served as a board member at the data integration company Talend and has advised various startups throughout his career.
Mark brings decades of experience building products, teams, and businesses to his role with Madrona, having transitioned from his most recent role as CEO of Tableau in late 2022. In his time helping to build great products and teams, Mark has had the fortune of working on areas ranging from computational biophysics, large-scale database systems, middleware for enterprises, and cloud infrastructure to travel, expense solutions, and data analytics. At Madrona, he focuses on evaluating new investments and advising portfolio companies and their leaders. Mark is passionate about how software, particularly software’s ability to utilize data, will revolutionize and enhance every aspect of human endeavors in the years to come.
Mark most recently served as president at CEO of Tableau. He joined Tableau as EVP of product development in May of 2018, about a year before Tableau’s acquisition by Salesforce. As EVP, he led the global engineering and product teams, and under his leadership, both teams helped the company broaden and deepen its industry-leading analytics platform to support customers globally while leading the company through the turbulent acquisition integration process during a pandemic.
Prior to Tableau, Mark was the chief technology officer at Concur for four and a half years, where he was responsible for all aspects of product development and for hosting operations for their SaaS services. After Concur’s acquisition by SAP, Mark also served as the CTO for SAP Cloud Business Group.
Mark spent 17 years as vice president and architect at Oracle, working primarily in the middleware product groups, which grew from a nascent business to a $6 billion business. Before Oracle, Mark worked at the database company Informix and helped to build E9-1-1 products for AT&T. Mark has also served as a board member at the data integration company Talend and has advised various startups throughout his career.
